Maya ceramics are ceramics produced in the Pre-Columbian Maya culture of Mesoamerica. The vessels used different colors, sizes, and had varied purposes. Vessels for the elite could be painted with very detailed scenes, while utilitarian vessels were undecorated or much simpler. Elite pottery, usually in the form of straight-sided beakers called "vases", used for drinking, was placed in burials,Źrałka, Jarosław, Christophe Helmke, Bernard Hermes, et al. “POLITICAL ALLIANCES AND TRADE CONNECTIONS OBSERVED IN THE CERAMIC RECORD OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD: THE PERSPECTIVE FROM THE MAYA SITE OF NAKUM, GUATEMALA.” Ancient Mesoamerica 31, no. 3 (2020): 461. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27343845. giving a number of survivals in good condition. Individual examples include the Princeton Vase and the Fenton Vase.
Used for a plethora of daily activities, such as the storage of food and beverages, ceramics were also a canvas of commemoration. There were three main types of ceramics used in daily life: bowls, plates, and cylinders. They were often monochrome, meaning that only one type of mineral slip was used. Polychrome pottery was more complex in nature and therefore more commonly used by the elite.Źrałka, Jarosław, Christophe Helmke, Bernard Hermes, et al. “POLITICAL ALLIANCES AND TRADE CONNECTIONS OBSERVED IN THE CERAMIC RECORD OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD: THE PERSPECTIVE FROM THE MAYA SITE OF NAKUM, GUATEMALA.” Ancient Mesoamerica 31, no. 3 (2020): 461. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27343845. Not only was polychrome pottery used as decoration, it was also used as a form of social currency—a physical display of status and others' approval. Many high-status ceramics have been interpreted as evidence of political interaction among Maya sites, reflecting patterns of alliance, subordination, and shifting regional power dynamics.Źrałka, Jarosław, Christophe Helmke, Bernard Hermes, et al. “POLITICAL ALLIANCES AND TRADE CONNECTIONS OBSERVED IN THE CERAMIC RECORD OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD: THE PERSPECTIVE FROM THE MAYA SITE OF NAKUM, GUATEMALA.” Ancient Mesoamerica 31, no. 3 (2020): 461. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27343845. In some cases, high-status vessels were ritually broken and deposited within the architectural cores of major structures, in contexts associated with rebuilding and expansion activities.Źrałka, Jarosław, Christophe Helmke, Bernard Hermes, et al. “Political alliances and trade connections observed in the ceramic record of the Classic period: the perspective from the Maya site of Nakum, Guatemala.” Ancient Mesoamerica 31, no. 3 (2020): 461, 465. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27343845.
As time progressed, various features were added to ceramics to go beyond the fundamental needs of vessels; For example, pellets were put in larger bowls to not only serve as something to hold food, but would also become instruments used in the same feasts.
Archaeological evidence has been found that suggests ceramics were used for industrial purposes. The discovery of highly uniform ceramic cylinders along with tools used in the production of salt indicate that the ceramics were used to mass-produce salt from brine.
Surveys of Maya ceramics are a major part of the ongoing controversy over the degree of elite political control over aspects the subsistence economy, the extent of economic centralization, and how it reinforces power (a common debate in the archaeology of complex societies).See for example introduction of
Typology As defined and used by Southwestern archaeologists, a ware is "a large grouping of pottery types which has little temporal or spatial implication but consists of stylistically varied types that are similar technologically and in method of manufacture", and "a defined ware is a ceramic assemblage in which all attributes of paste composition (with the possible exception of temper) and of surface finish remain constant.", citing (1st quote) WGW 1958 pp. 34–35, which cites Hargrave and Colton 1935 pp. 49–51, Colton and Hargrave 1937 pp. 1–2; citing (2nd quote) Sabloff and Smith 1969 p. 278. Generally each pottery classification and terminology system then becomes rather specific to a particular archaeological site and/or period.
A classification system can be epistemologically useful:, in the Petén case study. What does a ceramic system “mean”? Most obviously, it means that Postclassic Petén potters recognized and adhered to a decorative canon—a set of rules—for design structure, layout, and colors. Vessel forms and proportions varied from ware to ware and settlement to settlement, but the principles that structured what kinds of decoration were to be applied, and where and how, were strictly adhered to in at least three production resource-groups (minimally defined by paste compositions) throughout the lakes area (approximately seventy-five kilometers east–west) over three hundred years. In addition, we were eventually able to successfully predict the decorative types we would find (which would otherwise be a process of categorization) in each ceramic group. A type-variety classification system's criticisms include that it leaves a lot of variability unaccounted for, it should be accompanied by modal analysis, and it has limited use with whole vessels.
Petén Lakes Postclassic system "Postclassic slipped and decorated pottery at sites in the Petén Lakes region was manufactured of three distinctive paste wares. These indicate minimally three production nodes of Petén Postclassic pottery, at least one for each paste. ... These paste wares were used to manufacture the three most common red-slipped ceramic groups of the Postclassic.... [P]otters across the Petén Lakes area had a fairly uniform and widely shared set of ideas about what constituted proper pottery decoration regardless of their different clay and temper resources." Vitzil Orange-red Ware: coarse red-orange carbonate; used to manufacture Augustine ware., citing A. Chase 1983 Snail-Inclusion Paste Ware: silty gray-to-brown with snail inclusions; used to manufacture Paxcamán ware., citing Cowgill 1963 Clemencia Cream Paste Ware: marly “white” or cream; used to manufacture Topoxté ware., citing Rice 1979
"Whether painted or incised, decoration appeared in circumferential bands on the interior walls of tripod dishes (Rice 1983, 1985, 1989). The bands are defined above and below by multiple lines and divided into two or four panels by vertical lines or placement of simple motifs, which also may appear inside the panels (see Rice and Cecil 2009). This decorative coherence structures the classificatory coherence of types and varieties in the slipped ceramic groups across the three paste wares: monochrome, black-painted, red-painted, and incised."
Chocholá style
Northern Yucatán; as they did not come directly from digs they are often "labeled as 'unprovenanced' and hence 'unusable'. ... In 1973, the name Chocholá was first assigned to the waxy, chocolatey, bowls and cylinders, which due to their uniquely carved surfaces, stand out from the majority of ancient Maya ceramics. ... Coe named the style after a small village 30 kilometers southwest of Mérida, near the larger settlement of Maxcanu, from which he was told the ceramics originated" citing
"On a significant number of Chocholá pots the decorative information is restricted to hieroglyphics, either the diagonal band described above, or a more elaborate combination of diagonal glyph bands, rim texts, or a single large Calendar Round date." The Primary Standard Sequences are text that occurs usually as a rim text on many ceramic vessels from all parts of the Maya Lowlands. The PSS is a glyphic formula that refers to the dedication of a vessel, its method of adornment, the class of vessel involved, its use and content (cacao drinks and maize gruels), and sometimes the owner or artisan.
Monte Albán typology A ceramic classification by paste color and texture first defined in is commonly used: gris (gray, abbreviated "G"), crema (cream, abbreviated "C"), café (brown, abbreviated "K"), and amarillo (yellow or orange, abbreviated "A"). "Most ceramic types produced after the founding of Monte Albán are designated by an alphanumeric code indicating their ware and type number (e.g., G.12, C.11, K.17, A.9). In contrast, ceramic types dating to pre-Monte Albán phases generally have descriptive names (e.g., Socorro Fine Gray, Atoyac Yellow-White). Although Oaxaca archaeologists do not formally assign these types to the four ware categories defined by Caso et al. (1967), similar gray, brown, and buff/cream pastes were used by earlier (Middle Formative) potters, and several pre-Monte Albán types clearly were "ancestral" to particular types in the Monte Albán sequence (e.g., Drennan, 1976: 22; also Flannery and Marcus, 2005: 473; 2015: 115–116)."
Crema ware (cream)
Designs could be incised or carved post-firing. "In the Rosario phase and Early MA I, production loci generally produced both “costly” and utilitarian vessels. By Late MA I, the production of costly vessels was dominated by potters in the Cacaotepec-Atzompa locality northwest of Monte Albán, who specialized in the manufacture of elaborate cream ware (crema) vessels, while other communities produced primarily (though not exclusively) utilitarian vessels. We suspect that these patterns reflect the efforts of rulers at Monte Albán to control the production and distribution of elite pottery, particularly crema vessels." "Many other sites in which crema-ware ceramics were found were interpreted to have had close ties to Monte Albán, because these ceramics were only produced from clay sources located near the ancient city."Mechaca 2015 pp. 37-38, citing The distribution of crema ware in combination with other archaeological evidence suggests "efforts by the leaders of Monte Albán to control, perhaps because of trade, the valleys lying between the Valley of Oaxaca and the coast."Mechaca 2015 pp. 37-38.
Gris ware (gray)
Cafe ware (brown)
Amarillo ware (yellow or orange)
Slate ware characterized by its waxy and lustrous surface finishing, Late Classic to Early Postciassic in northwestern Yucatán peninsula. one of the most sophisticated ceramic traditions of Northern Yucatán, and encompasses a multitude of elite wares.
Color types: red ware, orange ware, polychrome
Gralisa ware "A distinctive incised and graphite-painted red ware pottery known only from Bajos de Chila and four other sites on Oaxaca’s central coast." Their great abundance and variety in Bajos de Chila and the Guatemala highlands have suggested a possible greater extent of Maya trade and influence, but Oaxaca coast excavations have been limited. citing
Chocolate pots Spouted vessels of the Middle Preclassic (1000–400 B. C.) and Late Preclassic (400 B. C.-A. D. 250) Maya are traditionally called "chocolate pots", but lacked direct evidence that they had use in association with cacao until recently.
Unique styles Stamped or mould-made pottery are generally rare among Maya ceramics.
Decoration The utilitarians ware of the common people usually had simple decoration that reflected its use. Vessels in the palace were more elaborately decorated by carved forms or highly skilled polychrome paintings with hieroglyphs which named their function, the patron and rarely, the artist signature. For example, cylindrical bowls used for cacao drinks often had the plant species Q. guatemalteca depicted on them because that flower was used to enhance the flavor of the cacao drink. Designs often included rituals, supernatural figures or common day practices. Rulers were often depicted next to deities and shown to be equal, or nearly equal, in power and status as them. Other pots functioned more as storytelling devices, with glyphs from the Maya script that likely were guides for songs or other ritualistic texts.